When the bye week comes, teams are making changes. They re-evaluate their performance so far and see whether they can do something different. Dallas Cowboys are no exception as the squad released experienced cornerback Nolan Carroll, who has been with the organization for seven months. In order to fill out the open position, the Cowboys front office signed linebacker Justin March-Lillard.
Nolan Carroll agreed to a three-year contract worth of $10 million earlier this year. In order to sign Carroll, Dallas chose not to extend Brandon Carr or Morris Claiborne’s contracts even though they were one of the key players on the team last year. Carroll’s agreement had $4 million in guarantees.
This decision surprised the fans of the America’s Team because we all know that Dallas struggles with experienced defensive players and Carroll was one of those veterans who could teach younger guys on the squad. Unfortunately for both Dallas and Carroll, he coped in Denver when he had to leave the game because of a concussion. Ever since that, we haven’t seen Carroll on the field.
His spot was filled by rookie Jourdan Lewis who despite a hamstring injury, performed well. Even though Carrol attended every practice last week before the game with the Packers, he was designated as inactive. Instead of him, Lewis and Chidobe Awuzie were out on the field. Luckily for the Cowboys, there are still five corners on the roster, and one of them came from the Bengals, Bene Benwikere. Besides him, Awuzie and Lewis, Orlando Scandrick and Anthony Brown are there.
Since Awuzie is still having issues with the hamstring, Dallas will use this bye week in order to decide whether to bring one additional cornerback to the roster or take the chances with the five they currently have.
